We're back!

It's been over a week now and we finally got television, internet, and phone service this morning thanks to Cable One. Moving is such fun!

Breakfast with Santa

Phil's new squadron hosted a breakfast with Santa this morning for the kiddos. The kids were supposed to go in their PJs and we figured you can't go wrong with a Santa/pancake combo so off we went. They had a great turnout and we got to meet a lot of the people in the squadron. Claire had a nice time and told Santa that she'd like a teddy bear for Christmas. Maddie was much less enthusiastic about Santa (read: screamed until we took her off of his lap). The bouncy castle was a big hit too and hopefully burned off some of the energy Claire seems to have in abundance lately.
The squadron here seems like a big family - I think we're going to really like it here.

We're here!

The girls and I managed to escape the crazy snow, rain, floods and power outages that Washington threw at us in our last weekend there and we have settled quite nicely into our room in Oklahoma. The sun peeked out long enough for me to take a few shots of the girls in front of our house as we pulled out of town.

Our move would have been much more difficult had it not been for the help of many of our friends. They watched the girls, fed us, let us stay in their house, loaned us their van, took us to the airport and were there to help us with everything. It's going to be hard to make good friends like that again.

Anyway, once we were on our way our flights went well, though I can't say that I'd like to fly all day by myself with both children again anytime soon. Thankfully, there were really nice people on both of our flights to help me get all of our necessities (diaper bags, DVD player, car seat, Happy Meals, blankie, baby carrier, two girls, etc) onto and off of the planes.

Claire and Maddie have been real good through all of this adventure. Claire has asked to go "home" several times and they're definitely ready to get their toys back. Otherwise, though, they're hanging in there.

In our quest to find ourselves a home we looked at houses on-base today. Hopefully we'll know our address for sure tomorrow. In the meantime, please keep your fingers crossed that our household goods found their way past the floods and out of Washington!

Road Trip, Day 3

Albuquerque, NM to Altus, OK


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Well, we made it. Roughly 2,222 miles from there to here.

Bailey is now enjoying a suite at the local dog kennel, and I'm trying to prep our temporary living quarters for the arrival of the girls tomorrow.

More to come as we figure out our permanent housing situation.

Road Trip, Day 2

Fresno, CA to Albuquerque, NM


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1773 miles behind, 442 miles to go (a little over 900 miles today...).

The weather cooperated again and we had a nice tour of California agricultural facilities along CA-99 and then really enjoyed going through the Sierra foothills east of Bakersfield. The Mojave Desert was scrubby and sunny, and I can see the home stretch now.

Katie and the girls are dealing with four inches of snow, followed by rain and wind, plus collapsing outdoor furniture and power outages--in addition to hurricane force winds blowing along the Pacific Northwest coast. Nice way to finish their time there...

On the Road Again

Day 1 - Tumwater, WA to Fresno, CA


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861 miles behind, 1357 miles to go.

The weather was nice and the driving easy for Bailey and me. Hopefully the next two days will be as good.

Boxes, boxes everywhere!

The move is very close. All our belongings, except a few precious blankies, books and toys are in boxes!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a very nice Thanksgiving over at my Uncle Rick's house this year. Claire and Nathan got to play and it was nice to visit with family - the last time we'll get together with them before our move. The menu was GREAT! I wish we had taken a photo of the spread. Uncle Rick, Aunt Mary, Michelle, Shannon, and Melissa did a great job fixing some yummy food. Claire had fun playing with Nathan, Maddie had fun climbing the stairs, and they both had a great time with the cat.

Happy Birthday, Girls!

Claire has an opposable thumb!

Claire had surgery this morning to correct a trigger thumb. It was a short procedure but required a general anesthetic so I got all worried about it. She was very brave and did GREAT before, during, and after her surgery. The first thing she requested upon waking was the strawberry popsicle that the orthopedic surgeon had promised her. She's making the most of this whole thing and using it as an excuse to sucker us into letting her watch lots of TV.

Before

After

Another birthday party and a big farewell

Claire went to a birthday party this evening at the local gymnastics studio. Maddie was not going to tolerate being held in a carrier during open gym time, so both girls ran around like crazy people. Claire was a bit intimated by all of the equipment at first but she quickly warmed up and was soon jumping into the foam pit with all of the other kids. Maddie ran on the long trampoline for pretty much the entire party.

Sarah came over after the party to print up boarding passes for their flight out to St. Louis tomorrow morning. I know we're moving soon too, but it was really hard to say goodbye to her, Weemo, and Daniel (and I admit I shed a few tears). I'm not sure that Claire really understands that she's not going to see them again. We sure will miss them.

I needed some cheering up this evening, so here's what I did.

Everything's falling into place

It seems like this move is coming up quickly. We accepted an offer on our house shortly after getting home from Hawaii. Woohoo! We had the home inspection on Thursday and are still waiting to hear back about that (keep your fingers crossed that nothing is wrong!) and have found out that Altus has plenty of housing available on base for us. It's tiny housing, but most of it is recently renovated and there's no waiting list, so that's a good thing. We won't have an address until we get there because we want to pick out a house in-person, but at least we know there will be somewhere for us to live. Then on Thursday the preschool in Altus called and said they would have room for Claire as soon as we got there. I was pretty excited about that because Altus seems to be like L.A., where the preschools all have crazy waiting lists. She was 9th on the list for the spring class, but they fit her in this fall so she'll (hopefully) make some friends right away. Everything is coming together.